USE OF ICT IN TEACHING

Teaching at School as well as Higher Education, mostly, concentrates on giving information which is not the sole objective of Teaching. Along with giving information, the other objectives are:

·         developing understanding and application of the concepts

·         developing expression power

·         developing reasoning and thinking power

·         development of judgment and decision making ability

·         improving comprehension, speed and vocabulary

·         developing self-concept and value clarification

·         developing proper study habits

·         developing tolerance and ambiguity, risk taking capacity, scientific temper, etc. 

With the present infrastructure, class size, availability of teachers, quality of teachers, training of teachers, etc., it is difficult to achieve all the objectives. Further, most of the teachers use Lecture Method which does not have potentiality of achieving majority of above mentioned objectives. The objectives are multi-dimensional in nature, so for their achievement multiple methods should be used in an integrated fashion. At present ICT may be of some use. It is a well known fact that not a single teacher is capable of giving up to date and complete information in his own subject. The ICT can fill this gap because it can provide access to different sources of information. It will provide correct information as comprehensive as possible in different formats with different examples. ICT provides Online interaction facility. Students and teachers can exchange their ideas and views, and get clarification on any topic from different experts, practitioners, etc. It helps learners to broaden the information base. ICT provides variety in the presentation of content which helps learners in concentration, better understanding, and long retention of information which is not possible otherwise. The learners can get opportunity to work on any live project with learners and experts from other countries. The super highway and cyber space also help in qualitative improvement of Teaching – Learning Process. ICT provides flexibility to learners which is denied by the traditional process and method. Flexibility is a must for mastery learning and quality learning.

On INTERNET many websites are available freely which may be utilized by teachers and students for understanding different concepts, improving vocabulary, developing Reasoning & Thinking, etc. ICT can help in preparing students for SAT, GRE, TOEFL, etc.